


Sylvia, Static-Cling, and the Apartment Fire

by HufflePufflePocalypse



Category: Original Work
Genre: Apartment Fire, Betty may or may not be a pyromaniac, Gen, How Do I Tag, I promise, Minor Swearing, Only mentioned though, Past Relationship(s), Why is tagging so difficult, and the ex isn't in the story, how do I title things, only vaguely described though, there is an angry cat though, worst of it is censored though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 23:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12120123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HufflePufflePocalypse/pseuds/HufflePufflePocalypse
Summary: After being woken up at an ungodly hour by the fire alarms and sprinklers in her apartment, Sylvia and her cat, Static-Cling spend the early morning with an older lady who may not be as sweet as she seems.





	Sylvia, Static-Cling, and the Apartment Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This was something I wrote for an English class and I was encouraged to post it by a good friend of mine. Please no flaming, though constructive criticism is welcomed! Hope you have as much fun reading this as I had writing it!

The apartment is on fire but at least it’s not my fault this time. In fact I’m barely awake right now, rubbing soot out of my eyes with one hand while I cradle my cat, Static-Cling, in the other. I woke up when the fire alarms went off and the sprinkler system deployed, somewhere in the bowels of the night time, between 1 and 2 o’clock in the morning. There’s something about waking up to the sound of sirens that makes a person very energetic, no matter what time it is, though I suppose an adrenaline rush will do that to you. 

As I wiggle my toes on the cool cement, I realize I forgot to grab socks and shoes on my way out. Static is still trembling slightly and she squirms in my arms until I slide my hand up her back and around her head, petting her between her ears and turning her back into a mush of fur and semi-contained hatred. She is what my ex-boyfriend refers to as a “problem-cat”. Or at least she was, until she chewed up the corner of his $300 textbook that was left sitting on the coffee table. Then she was a “f*cking hell-cat” and he wanted nothing more to do with either of us, not that we cared. Now her short brown fur is all sooty and dusty, and she growls at anyone who walks too close and even if I smile and ask how they’re doing, they hurry away without answering. I’m not sure how much of that is my cat, and how much of it is because I’m standing in front of a burning building smiling at people at 3 in the morning. 

The smoke is billowing out of the building now, though it’s mostly down on the far end of the complex, and I watch with a morbid fascination as orange flames flick outside the smokey windows. Soot like poisoned snowflakes is discoloring the pavement near the fire, and I walk a little closer, noticing the way firemen leave footprints in the ash. Someone reaches out to grab me by the shoulders and pull me further away, and I can feel the warmth of their hands through the over-sized hoodie I’m wearing. It’s an older lady, one of those absurdly friendly ones who is probably named Betty. I’ve seen her sitting on the benches outside the apartments before, though she’s usually accompanied by a nervous orderly and a friendly, hideous pug dog. Right now she is in a blackened nightgown, and the little pug is underneath the skirt, occasionally poking its head out beneath the hem and staring at me in concerned interest. I try to hold in a laugh as I notice that this is one of those beautiful moments where an owner and their pet look remarkably similar, until her hands latch onto my shoulders again, gentle but demanding, and she shakes me insistently. She’s talking frantically and it dawns on me that I should probably be paying a little more attention. Thankfully when I don’t answer whatever it is she just asked me, she doesn’t seem too annoyed. 

“You poor thing,” she croons, patting my head, “you must have been so frightened. Here, let me sit you down.” And then she guides me to a park bench, pushes me down as if _I’m_ the frail one here, and wanders off to find some water. When she returns a few minutes later, it’s with a styrofoam cup, and she all but thrusts it into my hand, sitting down beside me even as Static hisses and swats at the loose sleeve of her nightgown. At her insistence, I take a swig of the water and wince at the dusty taste. She does not seem to notice, thankfully, and instead tries to strike up a conversation. 

“You must have been so frightened,” she says, patting my knee. “I remember my first time running out of a fire-- I must have been 12 or so. That was 60, 70 years ago now?” She looks to me as if for confirmation and I blink, not sure quite how to respond to that. “Of course I’d lit the damn thing, but I had to at least act scared.” That is interesting. 

“You started a fire?” I ask, raising an eyebrow quizzically. She grins, almost shark-like in her ferocity, and I suddenly get the feeling that I might like this lady. 

“Well, it started with this upperclassman boy, Tommy. Now he was a real lady’s man, you know-- always had a pretty gal on his arm. My older sister was determined to be the one to set him straight.” 

“What exactly does this have to do with--” I begin, but she slaps a bony hand over my mouth, and keeps talking as if I haven’t said anything at all. 

“Well, Tommy took her to the movies, and down to the park, and out along the beach, and she was pretty sure he’d finally stopped his ways. They were disgustingly cute, the two of them were.” She smiles in a way that seems to be a strange sort of reminiscent, like drawing devil horns on that one estranged uncle in old family photos. “Well things seemed to be going well, until he let her drive his dad’s car and she accidentally hit his family’s prize pig.” I raise an eyebrow, and she stops talking for a moment, giving me space to jump in.

“A pig? How does this--” And then she’s off again. I push her hand away reflexively this time, my jaw snapping shut as I lean forward with a sigh, stroking Static-Cling and trying to follow what she’s telling me.

“Now down at the church there was gonna be a pig competition a month later, and the Jamesons had been holding onto this poor old sow for months trying to get her to last until then, because she was so old and sad. Poor thing was ready to be bacon months prior, but they had to get this last prize. And then my sister comes along in their dad’s car and kills the damn thing a month before the competition! Tommy was furious, but mostly he was panicked. The two hid the pig in the woods and he told his mom that he’d hit a deer on the way home, only then three days later, that pig was stinking up the whole forest and of course his family found out. It was summertime after all, and things go bad fast on days like those.” I still don’t see where this is going so I content myself by nodding my head and furrowing my brows as I continue to listen. 

“So Tommy gets in trouble and he tells my sister that that’s the end of it, they’re through. And poor Deliah is so heartbroken, she doesn’t stop crying for weeks. It was so annoying.” She huffs, rolling her eyes a little. “So I ask her, what will make you stop whining?, and you know what she says? She says I have to do something more awful than she did, so that Tommy will stop talking about her for a little while, and the kids at school will forget about this whole pig fiasco.” Suddenly I get an idea of where this is headed and she nods, grinning wickedly. 

“So I try to figure out what I can do that will be more exciting and awful than that whole mess with the Jamesons’ pig, and my friend Bobbie, she looks at me one day and says, ‘Betty, it’s so hot it feels like the school’s on fire.’” She laughs, as if it is only just now some great revelation. “Of course! A fire! So I get the stuff I need to get together, and I set it all up, and the next day on my way into school a little accident happens and the schoolhouse porch goes up in flames! That was when we had only a one-room schoolhouse where we lived, so kids were climbing out of the windows since the door was on the porch ‘n’ all.” She shook her head, still chuckling. 

“‘Course I realized then that this was really bad, and I’d probably get in huge trouble, so I thought to myself, you can’t tell no one, Betty. You gotta lay low. So how do you lay low when you started a fire?” I open my mouth to speak, and she cuts me off, shouting and gesturing wildly. “Why, you start screaming, of course!” And then she proceeds to do so, startling half a dozen bystanders that were near our bench and leading one of the firemen to come over and investigate. He asks if she’s alright but she won’t stop shouting and crying long enough to answer him. He turns to me for an explanation and I scramble for an answer, grabbing her hands to keep them from smacking me in the face and patting them calmly.

“She just got frightened by the fire, that’s all. We live in that complex,” I offer sheepishly, and she starts to quiet down a little, still babbling incoherently.

“Well I assure you, you’re quite safe, ma’am.” He nods at her, trying to be reassuring. “We’ve got it under control now.” I thank him and he ambles off, clearly unsure of what to think of Betty’s fit. I lean over to her, agitated.

“What was that all about?” I hiss, looking around to make sure the bystanders have left. She stops mumbling, drying her eyes on the sleeve of her nightgown. “It’s not like you started this one!” At that, she stops moving altogether, eyes flicking to mine as a smug smile crawls onto her face. I look back at the fire in astonishment. It’s big, filling up almost a third of the small apartment complex now. “How the hell did you--” I start, and she covers my mouth with her hand again.

“Well,” she grins, “it’s a bit of a story.”


End file.
